Principles for a US Transition to a Sustainable Low-carbon Economy

Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges facing our society, and financial firms as global capital providers play a key role in financing the creation and deployment of solutions that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, promote green energy generation and strengthen community resilience. While individual institutions have a significant role to play in the global effort to address climate change, policy must provide a critical foundation.

On February 17, the US Climate Finance Working Group, which comprises ISDA and 10 other trade associations, published principles for a US transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy. The principles are intended to serve as a useful framework, offering perspectives from the full spectrum of the financial services industry including banks, investment banks, insurers, asset managers, investment funds, pension funds and other financial intermediaries.

The principles are:

  • Set science-based climate policy goals that align with the Paris Agreement
  • Increase and strengthen US international engagement
  • Provide clear long-term policy signals that foster innovation in financial services
  • Price carbon and leverage the power of markets
  • Minimize costs and support jobs in the transition
  • Foster international harmonization of taxonomies, data standards and metrics
  • Promote more robust climate disclosure and international standards
  • Ensure climate-related financial regulation is risk-based
  • Build capacity on climate risk modeling and scenario analysis
  • Strengthen post-disaster recovery, risk mitigation and adaptation

The full PDF of the principles, Financing a US Transition to a Sustainable Low-carbon Economy, is attached.

Documents (1) for Principles for a US Transition to a Sustainable Low-carbon Economy

10 Years of the ISDA SIMM

As the derivatives industry prepared for the September 2016 implementation of initial margin requirements for non-cleared derivatives, one challenge stood out: counterparties needed to agree on the amount of initial margin to be exchanged. But if each firm developed its...

Expanding the Universe of Eligible VM

ISDA conducted a series of interviews with buy- and sell-side firms to understand the drivers of a growing use of non-cash assets as variation margin (VM) for non-cleared over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and the barriers that remain to expanding the use...

ISDA Response on Hedge Accounting Guidance

On August 14, ISDA responded to an exposure draft from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). ISDA broadly supports the FASB’s proposed targeted improvements to hedge accounting, including allowing interest rate hedging of held-to-maturity (HTM) debt securities, recognizing all Secured...

Joint Response to EBA Consultation

On August 12, ISDA and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) responded to the European Banking Authority’s discussion paper on certain taxonomy key performance indicators (KPIs) and other aspects of the Disclosures Delegated Act  under Article 8 of...